


all that i've lied to you about

by harajukucrepes



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cohabitation, M/M, Separation Anxiety, Winwin is a doctor, Yuta is a dancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 22:57:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17569511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harajukucrepes/pseuds/harajukucrepes
Summary: Behind the picture he had pinned on the board, there’s a simple sentence in jittery handwriting:I wish you didn’t have to go.





	all that i've lied to you about

**Author's Note:**

> \- while this is an AU, it was written as a way for me to cope with Winwin's absence in 127's activities so it's not entirely the fluffiest thing in the world  
> \- writing this is both the most difficult thing in the world and the most therapeutic 
> 
> \- initially inspired by a doujin for Kuroko no Basuke's Mido/Taka titled 13cm, but eventually it became so far off from the original idea that only the bare skeleton of "living together for a while before one of them leaves" remains
> 
> \- all forms of feedbacks are welcomed!

**(i)**

 

 

The scenery from the balcony is so beautiful, it's almost worth the exorbitant rental money.

“You’re not the one paying for it, so why are you even complaining,” Sicheng sulks.

Yuta steals a glance at Sicheng, who’s unpacking his boxes of medical books and files of reports. He supposes it would only be natural for Sicheng to be more prudent than necessary even though the relocation is to be a temporary arrangement since he’s working and researching at the same time.Yuta on the other hand, has the luxury to opt for only packing the necessary items.

Sicheng looks pretty stressed out from the ever-growing pile of papers and files as he basically turns the boxes inside out with a frantic expression that tells Yuta that he has forgotten to pack something.

“You know,” Yuta breaks the tension, “we can share the rental for this place.”

“Why? I’m fine with the amount.”

“Well, I’ll be living here too.”

“But I asked you to.”

“Well I said yes.”

“It’s not like you could reject me.”

The outburst is clearly unintentional, because when Yuta turns around to look at Sicheng again, his knuckles are rubbing his temples. It’s what Sicheng does when he’s stressed and frustrated.

“Because you know I won’t ever say no to you, am I right?”

The setting sun’s orange rays can’t hide the fact that Sicheng’s visibly flustered, so Yuta goes inside the house and gives him a comforting hug.

“We are going to live together for a while, so let’s get along, ok?”

Sicheng smiles as a response and Yuta’s reminded by just how much he adores him.

“And please do consider accepting my offer to pay half the rental.”

Sicheng hits him lightly in protest.

 

 

*

 

 

Yuta attaches the first polaroid on the board nailed above their shared bed. It’s a picture he took a few weeks ago on their cable car ride to Mt Hiei where Sicheng had both his palms on his eyes to avoid looking out at the ascending cabin.

“Of all the pictures you could have taken of me, THIS?”

“Why?” Yuta laughs. “I love it, it’s really adorable.”

“You can’t even see my face!” Sicheng complains with such a childishly petulant voice that Yuta wonders how did he ever become a surgeon.

“It has everything I love and because I took this picture with love, it’s the best picture I have in my phone right now.”

“Liar.”

“It’s true,” he says, pulling Sicheng close as he whispers near the sharp pointy edge of his ear. “You, the mountain, loves of my life.”

Sicheng looks coyly at him before pinning his own picture on the board.

“It’s nothing,” he sighs.

It’s a picture of Yuta’s back against the setting sun in the balcony of their newly-shared apartment.

“I like it very much, even though it doesn’t have my face.”

Sicheng scrunches his face as he always does whenever Yuta teases him.

“But I really do like it.”

The earnest look on Sicheng’s face makes Yuta nuzzle into his neck.

“Really? You like it?”

“Yes, because I look very handsome in that picture.”

For a moment, Sicheng looks like he’s about to snap with a denial, but he only holds Yuta tight and Yuta plants a soft kiss on his tip of his ear.

 

 

**(ii)**

 

 

Yuta can’t believe the state of the kitchen—he has only been away to buy miso soup paste (and Lawson is only a mere 10 minutes walk) and he’s coming back to a scene of an alien invasion.

“I... can explain,” Sicheng stammers. Apparently he put in too much water to boil the spaghetti and realised it far too late, then when he tried to fix it by removing the water from the pot, he didn’t notice that the salmon on the pan was overcooking and by the time he removed enough water from the pot to flip the salmon, the boiling water from the spaghetti pot spilled out and he scalded his finger while trying to reach to the pot and the mac and cheese in the oven was overheated and that was how he ended up thinking that they might be better off eating out that night.

The only thing in Yuta’s mind now is how he should have never listened to Sicheng when he insisted that he has definitely improved his cooking skills and that he would definitely be able to cook something and also that it might even be at a professional chef’s level.

Sicheng takes a deep breath and looks around him in embarrassment. “Shall we eat out?”

Yuta ruffles Sicheng’s hair. “First, let’s clean this up.”

 

 

*

 

 

They end up deciding on hotpot in Hankyu building, but not before waiting in the queue for almost an hour.

“So,” Yuta asks when it’s almost their turn. “Who in the world taught you that spaghetti in miso paste is a passable idea for dinner.”

“I looked it up online, it’s one of the popular organic recipes.”

“You know you could have just made a literal egg sandwich—ah no, wait, can you even boil eggs—and I’ll be happy, right?”

Sicheng’s expression of guilt immediately turns into a face of defiance. “I want to prove that I’m not—”

“ _Ryouri baka_?” It’s what Renjun calls him, even if, arguably, Renjun isn’t much better.

Before Sicheng can respond, the waitress invites them to their table and apologises for the long wait.

 

 

*

 

 

Yuta’s new addition to the board is a picture of a burned toast that Sicheng made on a day he happened to have woken up quite early but forgot to dispose of. The bite on the toast suggested to Yuta that he did try eating it at least, so Yuta took a picture of it in case an opportunity to tease Sicheng comes up.

“That’s so mean of you, your pictures of me never have my face!”

“The one I took last week had your face though?”

“That doesn’t count,” Sicheng pouts and Yuta knocks their foreheads together before revealing the actual polaroid he’s adding to the board.

It’s a picture of him dipping the piece of sliced pork into the hot pot.

“There, your face.”

“Cheater. I wasn’t even looking at the camera.”

“But I took it with so much love! Remember how we were STARVING that day because of your kitchen fiasco.”

Sicheng responds with a muttered complaint. “You say that all the time.”

“Say what all the time?”

“Saying that you took the pictures of me,” he replies as he pins his own picture on the board, “with Love.”

“It’s true,” Yuta says, taking his hand into his. “You too, didn’t you?”

Yuta’s referring to Sicheng’s picture of him sleeping in their shared bed after the hearty hot pot they had.

“Your pictures always make me believe I’m more handsome than I thought.”

Sicheng’s face flushes as Yuta pinches his cheek.

 

 

**(iii)**

 

 

After establishing that they should both stay away from the kitchen to avoid possible future irreparable damage to their very expensively rented apartment, they agreed to keep each other updated on their meal availabilities, especially for Sicheng whose work schedule is far more unpredictable than Yuta’s.

Yuta’s days usually end at around 10pm and he doesn’t work on Sundays, so theoretically they could use the weekend to spend some time together, but Sicheng often has to work on call duty on weekends, and for some wretched reason, their third week together is so hectic for Sicheng that they hardly get to see each other at all.

He either wakes up to find Sicheng sleeping like a log curled up in his corner of the bed or lying on the sofa without even changing out of his clothes and Yuta has even gotten used to expecting almost 12 hours gap in their text messages.

He gets up extremely grumpy on Sunday when he realises that they have only slightly more than one month left to be together and starts mentally debating if he should just barge into Osaka University Hospital, charm a nurse into lending him a male nurse uniform and just stalk Sicheng as he works in his office. A quick dissenting voice at the back of his mind quickly jumps in and calls him out for being the most possessive boyfriend ever.

“Boyfriend, eh,” he says to himself.

Sometimes he wonders if Sicheng sees him as such, because their conversations had never managed to broach the subject on defining their relationships. He could appear with a bouquet of flowers and a ring, but if Sicheng says to whatever audience they would have that Yuta’s just a very good friend of his sending him some gifts, he’s technically not wrong.

“I really want to see you,” he types into the phone screen after a few minutes of deliberation. It’s a lot of desperate emotions put into such a common phrase and Yuta immediately gets up to pick a book to read because he badly needs a distraction.

By the time Sicheng replies with “me too, I want to see you very badly”, Yuta has accidentally napped while only a quarter through the only Higashino Keigo book he brought to this apartment.

 

 

*

 

 

Yuta’s awakened by a sudden warm body sneaking up into the sofa he’s been lying in.

“It’s evening already?” He mumbles as he catches sight of his phone to check out the time.

Sicheng nuzzles into his chest. “Yes, almost time for dinner.”

“I thought you won’t be home until midnight?”

“Had a headache, so Dr Miyazaki offered to cover my shift.”

It takes Yuta a few seconds before he realises what has just happened.

“You aren’t really sick, are you?”

Sicheng shakes his head. “No, it’s true, I did have a headache.”

Yuta pets his head.

“Well, you’ve hardly slept throughout the week. You should go get some proper rest since you called in sick anyway.”

“I am,” Sicheng says, tightening his embrace, “this is my rest.”

Yuta’s too sleepy to laugh but he’s also a little too aware to think it’s just all just a dream.

“I can’t believe this, you’re being clingy. You, an adult, a professional medical officer, is being CLINGY.”

“Shut up.”

“Who would have thought that an esteemed surgeon from one of the best hospitals in Osaka would be this big of a baby.” Yuta giggles as he cradles Sicheng with his brand of aggressive affection he only reserves for Sicheng.

“Shut… up…” Yuta feels Sicheng’s knuckles hitting against his chest.

Yuta used to think that he couldn’t have loved Sicheng more than he already does, and even if the many things he does only daily basis endear him a lot, it hasn’t made his heart blossom like it does now.

It’s official, he thinks. There’s nobody else in the world like him.

As the sun sets completely and the streetlights start slowly flickering, Yuta finally asks him. “Hey,” he sweeps Sicheng’s bangs with his fingers, “if you’re up for it, wanna go on a date with me tonight?”

“A date?”

“Yes. A date. As my boyfriend.”

 

 

*

 

 

Sicheng takes three deep breaths and lets go of Yuta’s arm.

“Really?” Yuta asks as their pod approaches. “We don’t have to do this, you know?”

“I’ll prove it to you,” he declares and Yuta laughs as he pulls Sicheng for their Ferris Wheel ride. “That I can overcome my fear of heights.”

The pod shakes a little as they sat and Sicheng immediately grabs the handle.

“Want me to sit next to you?”

Sicheng shakes his head, but then immediately nods when their pod sways as it slowly rises.

“Don’t look down,” Yuta says as he settles himself next to him and holds on to his waist. His heart falls a little when he realises that that Sicheng has been getting thinner.

“You know, you might be busy and all but you should still eat.”

Sicheng gulps and heaves a deep breath.

“Ah, you’re so skinny, my heart hurts.” Sicheng refuses to face him even as Yuta tightens his hold.

They sit quietly for a while until they reach to the top and Sicheng murmurs about how beautiful Osaka is.

“Yeah,” Yuta perches his chin on Sicheng’s shoulder. “But if you ask me though, I’d say you’re prettier.”

“Me?”

“Uh huh.”

“I’m prettier than Osaka?”

“Yup.”

“What about Kyoto?”

“Now that’s inhuman. Why would you pit the two loves of my life against each other?”

Yuta’s expecting some retorts, but Sicheng just holds on to Yuta’s grips on his waist.

 

 

*

 

 

Yuta’s polaroid is the selfie took on the Ferris Wheel, while Sicheng’s is the picture of Yuta sleeping in the sofa with the book on his face.

“You always take pictures of me sleeping, what a stalker.”

Sicheng gives him a playful punch in the collar.

 

 

**(iv)**

 

 

This medical conference that Sicheng will be attending is obviously stressing Sicheng out royally, because even the mere sound of Yuta cracking his knuckles is setting him off.

“I’m sorry,” Yuta apologises without knowing what he’s sorry for.

Sicheng’s face is tense and his breathings are heavy and it suddenly dawns upon Yuta that he doesn’t know how to deal with this. In the past he has dealt with an upset Sicheng, a tired Sicheng, a melancholic Sicheng, a grumpy Sicheng, a clingy Sicheng, a temperamental Sicheng who wanted to be left alone, a moody Sicheng who would glare at anyone who dared touch him—but not snappy, murderous Sicheng who would kill anyone getting in the way of his holy path to divination.

The thing is that though—Yuta thinks he understands the magnitude of Sicheng’s job and he deeply admires him for it. He admires Sicheng’s fortitude for getting to the top of his very competitive field and being so far ahead of his peers that he got accepted into a prestigious hospital in another country, in addition to being more than adequately adept in medical lingo for both Chinese and Japanese. He admires Sicheng’s resilience in making an effort to offer all his patients genuine empathy no matter how much they might trouble him. He loves that Sicheng has never made it a thing to only mingle within his professional equals, because otherwise Yuta would have never known him.

The truth is that Sicheng and Yuta are from two different worlds and it has never been made clear in their way of coping with their most urgent assignments: Sicheng has to prepare for his annual conference and Yuta has to complete the last choreography he has committed for his crew.

He likes bragging about just how well he knows Sicheng inside out—until it’s clear to him that he doesn’t.

He decides that it’s best to leave him alone for the time being. It’s just 11pm, if he’s fast enough he could get a train to the next station and crash at Taeyong’s place.

“You know,” Yuta struggles to get words out. “I think I’m going to spend the night at Tekki’s.”

“Why?”

“Coz you’re busy and I… sort of need to finish the moves for this song so that we can put something together before I leave…”

“Ok.”

Yuta hasn’t expected such swift concurrence.

“And I’ll probably be sleeping late so when you leave for Nagoya tomorrow, I won’t be around.”

“Yeah, I get it. I really do.”

Yuta doesn’t know how to tell him that they had a rather different conversation during dinner just a few hours ago, and that Sicheng had promised that he would wake him up when the hospital-sponsored taxi arrives in front of the lobby of their apartment building to say goodbye.

“I really get it. It’s important, right? Your stuff?”

Yuta’s immediately annoyed. “What do you mean, my _stuff_?” He usually brushes it off, but he doesn’t like it when Sicheng insinuates that Yuta’s works with his crews seemingly require less intellect than his medical work.

When Sicheng looks up to meet his eyes, Yuta’s already not in the mood to argue any further. He puts his hands up in surrender and packs some of his clothes, toiletries and his wallet.

“Just let me know when you come back next week.”

He hasn’t meant to sound bitter, but something inside him is refusing to give up and is hoping that Sicheng would stop him halfway.

But he doesn’t.

And there are no calls or texts following up.

By the time he reaches Taeyong’s place, he’s starting to wonder if this is a better arrangement after all—breaking up before they have to eventually separate.

 

 

*

 

 

Yuta comes back to their shared apartment the next afternoon and receives a text from Sicheng just right before he closes the door.

“I’m sorry.” the text says.

Yuta flops to the bed, a sense of loneliness pierces through his chest as he thinks about the polaroid they’re supposed to exchange this weekend.

Ah, he sighs. Even if a separation is inevitable, this is still hard to swallow.

“I shouldn’t have been bothered.”

 

 

**(v)**

 

 

Yuta wakes up in the morning to the fragrant smell of toast—and immediately remembers that he’s to expect Sicheng home after his week-long conference.

He jumps from his bed and finds Sicheng in the kitchen, comically trying to softly washing the dishes.

“I made you breakfast,” he says, wearing an expression of a puppy being caught accidentally spilling food to the floor.

Yuta blinks. He can’t believe that the first thing Sicheng would do after returning would be to attempt to cook. After a week of basically abject silence, this hasn’t been what he has been expecting. Yuta has expected to receive him and later they would both agree to cordially peace out from this whole domestic arrangement thing, not feeling relieved that Sicheng hasn’t managed to burn the kitchen.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he continues. “It’s just egg sandwich… plus some tamagoyaki I got from the store. And one onigiri, also from the store. And I cut an orange.”

“Didn’t you just get back?” Yuta asks.

Sicheng’s eyes are downcast. “Yes. But I slept quite a bit during the journey, so I’m still alright.”

Yuta slaps himself on the arm to confirm that he’s not dreaming, then turns around towards the bathroom.

“I’ll get freshened up.”

“Wait—”

Sicheng rushes to grab his arm, eyes still looking at the floor.

“Would you go to the park with me?”

He supposes that the suggestion quite possibly mean that they might not be “peacing out” after all, but he’s still too shocked to think of anything coherent.

“I’ll be quick.”

 

 

*

 

 

With the winter looming near, the trees have nearly all gotten bald and the air increasingly chilly, with only the sounds of children playing around warms Yuta’s heart.

The only thoughts swimming through his mind are all the many ways he’s going to really miss the colours of Osaka’s seasons—and also probably the progress of Sicheng’s cooking skills, because the egg sandwich isn’t bad, like at all. The eggs are mixed well with avocados and onion, the lettuce are fresh, and Sicheng has replaced the mayonnaise with Greek yoghurt.

“You practised?” he asks, referring to the perfectly boiled egg.

“Yes,” Sicheng admits. “I didn’t know that even boiling eggs can be difficult.”

“It’s delicious.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I really like the way everything’s put together. You even remember me telling you about how Momoka discovered that Greek yoghurt plus smashed egg tastes just like egg mayonnaise.”

They are speaking so comfortably that it’s as though the past week didn’t happen, Yuta didn’t walk out right on the night before Sicheng was about to leave for a week, Sicheng didn’t lose his temper on him, and they didn’t spend one whole week not speaking to each other in a battle of ego.

Yuta should have really known that this would happen, as it always does. They would have minor disagreements, Yuta would try to minimise the impact but always fail to conceal his annoyance because he could never help wearing his emotions on his sleeves and it would always end up with Sicheng reaching out to him, apologising with some tiny little gestures. One time Sicheng came to visit him when he was sick with some medications he got from the pharmacy. The other time he came with a bottle of Pocari and showed up in his studio, and Yuta will never forget how there was this one time when he told Yuta that he was asking for hip-hop music recommendations from Renjun’s friend, because he wanted to understand Yuta’s works more.

Yuta suspects that Sicheng’s habit of assuming that he’s at fault during disagreements is one of the occupational hazards of being a foreign medical professional—because he has to constantly apologise for being from another country and not knowing how things work so apologies eventually became part of his armour of courtesy.

Yuta’s next bite is laden with guilt, because there’s something really different about Sicheng going all out in making sure that he knows exactly how to prepare a simple egg sandwich perfectly—he wears courtesy for everyone else, but his perfectionism is reserved to tell Yuta of his determination to make this work, to make _them_ work.

Yuta has never been more assured about Sicheng’s feelings for him.

He decides to reciprocate, so he takes a glance at an old couple sitting at a bench adjacent to theirs and throws Sicheng a smile.

“It might be impossible, but I wish we could be like them.”

 _Them_ is the pair of the old couple huddling together under a treee sharing a bento and the both of them looking like they are having the best of the time with their pet cat. Sicheng blushes furiously as he catches on to what exactly Yuta’s talking about and Yuta chuckles, then promptly links their pinkies inconspicuously.

“Thank you for the meal. It’s really delicious.”

Sicheng’s expression after he says that makes him wanna to transport him to a place where it wouldn’t be questionable to give him a huge hug and the most passionate kiss he’ll ever experience in his life—but a park in Osaka isn’t that kind of place so he has to be content with grinning like an idiot as the world’s biggest fool in love.

 

 

*

 

 

Yuta pins two polaroids to the board while humming to _Zenzenzense_ : one of Sicheng studying in utmost concentration, and another of him in the convenience store while he was flipping unsuspectingly through an “idol magazine”.

“You should have warned me what I was reading at that time!”

“Look, I need to make sure you’re healthy,” Yuta throws a flirtatious glance below Sicheng’s waist, “over there.”

“Hey!” The next thing Yuta realises is that he’s being pinned down to the bed and Sicheng’s squeezing his collar. “Don’t tease me like that.”

Sicheng knows that Yuta’s neck and collar area is especially ticklish so whenever he’s up for it, he returns Yuta’s teasings by tackling that part of his body but they have never been so aware of their own desire for each other until now, because when Yuta’s giggles fades, Sicheng’s face relaxes to normal and they are meeting each other eye-to-eye—it’s like they are seeing each other for the first time and Yuta’s reminded just how beautiful Sicheng is.

“You know,” he whispers as he puts a hand beside Sicheng’s face and caresses his cheek, “I used to be really obsessed with your eyes.” He uses his finger to touch the inner corner of his eye and trail the bridge of his nose while Sicheng blinks really slowly, as though he’s silently bragging about his naturally beautiful features.

Sicheng takes his hand into his own and Yuta’s suddenly thinking about how lucky he is that he’s holding him right now, how lucky he is that the person he has been pining for years actually loves him back, and that they have both fought through improbably destiny to meet and fall for each other—and even then, if he didn’t have to be in the hospital lobby at that time and Sicheng hadn’t been called by the patient waiting for him at the lobby, they wouldn’t have met.

It suddenly terrifies Yuta that things would have been so different if any of them were even a slightly different person: if Yuta wasn’t so attracted to his features that he started staring at him from across the lobby hall; if Sicheng was less compassionate than he was and didn’t bother reaching out to Yuta; if Yuta didn’t love Kyoto and hadn’t recommended Kifune temple to Sicheng and eventually took him there; if Sicheng wasn’t interested in watching his live performances; if Yuta hadn’t been brave enough to tell Sicheng that yes, he likes boys too and he especially likes boys like Sicheng; and if Sicheng didn’t like him enough to stay with him, and stayed even when Yuta announced that he had to leave Japan because a famous dance studio in Los Angeles has offered him a permanent instructor position in their team and he would get to tour the world as well.

Sicheng brushes Yuta’s hair away from his forehead and bends down. “I’m glad you were,” and he starts kissing him softly.

It’s a kiss so soft that it’s like the touch of a rose petal, it’s like the brush of snow, it’s like he’s dreaming of all these and nothing feels real. The warmth of Sicheng’s body isn’t real, the touch of his hand isn’t real, the pain in his chest isn’t real and everything is making him feel like he had imagined this all up—because he probably adores Sicheng enough to want him but doesn’t love him enough to want to fight for a future with him. He had been brave enough to say he feels something for him but not courageous enough to say he loves him and if it wasn’t because of Sicheng taking the effort to make it up to him, Yuta wouldn’t have told him that he wants to grow old with him.

Sicheng stops when the tears start falling from Yuta’s eyes.

“Are you alright?” He sounds so gentle that Yuta’s feeling like the worst person alive.

“Yes.” Yuta pulls him down and kisses him hard, because he doesn’t want a soft kiss now. He wants something strong, something impactful, something that would make him realise that he doesn’t deserve Sicheng. He doesn’t deserve to see the best of him, doesn’t deserve to get his affections, doesn’t deserve to have someone like Sicheng falling for him. He deserves to be hurt, to have his feelings ripped apart, to have his body bitten and scratched and bloody and yet he can’t stop himself because—

“I love you,” Yuta blurts out suddenly.

Sicheng looks at him in shock, and so he says again.

“I mean it, I love you.”

Sicheng’s thumbs wipes his tears away with a small, tender smile. “I know.” He says it so softly that it makes Yuta’s tears fall even more.

“You do? You really do?”

Sicheng lies beside him and holds him tightly as Yuta cries to sleep.

 

 

*

 

 

Sicheng pins two polaroids on the board: one of Yuta underneath a balding cherry blossom tree, and one of Yuta sitting right beside him in the train.

 

 

**(vi)**

 

 

Yuta receives a text from his mother as he steps out from the elevator to his apartment floor telling him to stay warm as it has started snowing—and it abruptly hits him that this would be the last winter he’ll be experiencing for some time. He heads straight to the balcony and stares at the sky as the tiny snowflakes fall slowly, illuminated by the streetlights and the vibrant neon hues from the buildings and billboards.

As he watches the snow melting from his fingertips, he thinks about how there’s something really different about this particular snowfall, because throughout most of his life he has been mostly observing snow from the carefully tended garden in his old family home, but this is the first time he gets to see snow from a heightened location. He spots a couple from a distance and observes as they let the snow fall to their head and slowly coming to an understanding that he has mostly only seen the snow as they fall, but not while they are _falling_.

He takes a deep breath then replugs his airpods into his ear and plays his favourite Kizuki Minami album while his thoughts wander around the places and people he’s seeing from the balcony: the pair of curious children nearby the couple he has been observing, the bikers and the cyclists, the headlights from the vehicles and the neon signs, the dimming lights from the buildings as the establishments and stores slowly retires for the night. His thoughts then travel further away to his own home, the old house belonging to his grandmother who got it from his own grandmother, and all the grandmothers before her, and then back in time to all those times he had spent during his childhood frolicking in the snow with his two sisters with just a Tshirt and a pair of shorts (and always going down with flu the day after) and the teenage years he spent with his friend hanging out in the game centers in the Namba area or all the shrine dates he took his previous girlfriends to.

He’s so lost in this own thoughts, he doesn’t even realise that he has been crying in the balcony until Sicheng startles him with a protective backhug and he’s shaken awake.

“You didn’t close the door and didn’t turn on the lights, I was really scared.”

The cold air seems to have numbed his mind and body so much that it takes a while before he manages to register that Sicheng has never hugged him like that before. Sicheng’s hugs are usually so impersonal that nuances are near impossible to tell but now he’s holding him a way that like he’s afraid to let go, and Yuta doesn’t remember if his body has ever felt more brittle.

“Are you alright?”

Yuta wants to say _yes_ because it’s nothing, really, it’s just that partings are supposed to be hard. He wants to say _yes_ because Sicheng probably is probably tired from having to care for so many people on daily basis and the last thing he needs is coming home to a mopey boyfriend who seems to be crying pretty often recently. He wants to say _yes_ because he wanted this, he had wanted an adventure for so long and it has been his dream to be travelling around the world spreading his passion and god will be damned before he would concede to feeling upset about leaving home. He wants to say _yes_ because he remembers Sicheng’s expression when he told him that he’ll be leaving Japan for some indefinite time and how Sicheng had glared him for joking about finding a white girl to marry. He wants to say _yes_ because Sicheng is also having a hard time dealing with separation anxiety and Yuta’s ashamed to tell him that he has been having second thoughts even though the logistics are pretty much fully arranged. He wants to say _yes_ because he’s afraid to admit that Sicheng really only needs to ask and he’ll probably drop all his plans at that very second to continue staying with him.

But then Sicheng buries his face in his nape and Yuta feels the walls of his defenses finally crashing down.

“Probably not,” he confesses as the snow melts right after they fall on his face.

 

 

*

 

 

Yuta can’t believe that the answer has been right in front of him.

“Hey,” he asks Sicheng, “I never asked you this, but it must be really hard to be with another country, right? Do you think I can do it?”

Sicheng chuckles as he drops his head onto Yuta’s. “Why are you feeling insecure out of a sudden?”

“You know, I’ve never actually really left home. Not even Osaka.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“My life has always been here, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“Los Angeles is very far away.”

“Yes, very far. Very, very far.” Sicheng’s voice softens.

“Just thinking about it is making me homesick.”

Sicheng inhales deeply.

“I’m going to really miss this place,” he says.

 _This place_ is not just the city; it’s the sum of all the memories he hold, his roots, his family, his mother’s oyakodon, the four consistent seasons in a year, the familiarity of his own language, his best friends and Sicheng—teaching Sicheng about everything he loves, everything he knows and everything he wants, the way he has made Sicheng’s longing for his home city the sanctuary of his love for his own home.

 

 

*

 

 

Sicheng warns him in advance. “This will be the saddest thing I’ll ever say to you. You have to promise you’re not going to cry, ok?”

Yuta laughs. “What? I’m not going to? Just because my tears are easy these few days—”

“You just did though?” Sicheng scrunches his face and pokes the spot between Yuta’s eyes.

Yuta nuzzles him and makes himself comfortable laying his head on Sicheng’s chest.

“No, I’m not going to. But no promises, because I’m kinda delicate at the moment.”

Sicheng holds his hand tight. “This is just what I observe, but do you know that your home today will not be your home tomorrow? I mean, everytime I go back to Wenzhou, it changes. Everytime I leave Osaka for a while to go somewhere, it changes a little. You know, like how I leave for Nagano for a while and we weren’t talking, and then I come back and I made you an egg sandwich—”

“Ah yes, the sudden magical chef that you are,” Yuta teases, and Sicheng tickles his chin.

“I can’t seem to find any kind of home that doesn’t change, but I think I found it when you said you wish we could be an old couple together.”

What are you talking about, Yuta’s thinking. This isn’t sad at all—

“Oh.”

Except Yuta knows exactly why Sicheng said it would be the saddest thing he’ll ever say to him, so he lets go of the hand to take Sicheng’s ring finger and twiddles at the joint where his finger meets his palm. Sicheng’s inscrutable expression makes his sorrow palpable and Yuta is suddenly realising just how irresponsible leaving him behind could be.

“If you were thinking of comforting me,” Yuta says, “you just failed spectacularly.”

“I know,” Sicheng answers. “It hurts me to say it.”

Yuta clenches their hands together.

“And it hurts me to hear it.”

It hurts so much. So, so much that Yuta wonders if even a doctor of Sicheng’s calibre would ever be capable of healing it.

 

 

*

 

 

They add two pictures to the board that weekend: one of a snowy garden of Yuta’s ancestral home, and another of a large apple tree in front a Western-style mansion owned by Sicheng’s grandfather in rural Wenzhou.

 

 

**(vii)**

 

 

The weather is colder than predicted so it doesn’t surprise Yuta that the crowd heading towards Kifune Jinja is thinner than expected. Sicheng isn’t too pleased about the unexpected temperature drop and elaborates begrudgingly about how even the global medical field has been bracing for the possible viral outbreaks due to uncontrollable weather shifts caused by climate changes on the way to the temple, with only the white beauty of the accumulated snow on the steps towards the temple managing to stop his rants.

“This is so pretty,” he gushes as he takes multiple pictures of the steps and the lanterns en route to the shrine. It’s one of those times when Yuta once again reminds himself that Sicheng is supposed to be an obstinate professional.

“So, what was that about the ice and the rising sea level again?”

Refusing to be distracted, Sicheng hushes him. “Don’t talk, you’re disturbing the serene energy.”

Yuta teases him a lot but he really does like this unbothered side of Sicheng, even though it did take him quite a while to feel comfortable enough to show Yuta his childish side. He supposes he’ll never be not fascinated by the fact that Sicheng still has that unbridled curiosity in him that gives a stark contrast to the first impression that he had held of him (he had thought of him to be a strict, no-nonsense academician). He really loves the way has been living his life with such disciplined restraint yet he still affords himself some uninhibited freedom.

It’s one of those observations about Sicheng that makes Yuta believe that their life together has always meant to be a simple love story—complexities of circumstances be damned.

The suddenly loud clicking sound of Sicheng’s phone jolts Yuta away from his thoughts.

“I wasn’t ready!” he exclaims as he playfully threatens to delete the picture.

“I like it,” Sicheng insists, “and it’s MY picture.”

“But it’s a picture OF ME. You pay models for a reason.”

“You weren’t modelling for me. I just took a picture of you and I’m not showing you yet,” Sicheng says as he climbs up the steps ahead of Yuta resolutely. Coincidentally, Yuta’s just right in the mood for some playful retaliation, so he gathers some snow from the handrails and balls them up, then throw the snowball at Sicheng’s back.

Sicheng looks like a very angry bird as he turns back and glares at him as while he laughs heartily.

 

 

*

 

 

Yuta lets Sicheng walk ahead of him as they climb down after they got their fortunes from their shrine as the sky starts darkening.

“Your first time, right? Hatsumode?”

“Yeah.”

“Was it fun?”

“Yeah. It was great.”

“Let’s come again together? Whenever I come back?”

When Sicheng turns around, the light from the lanterns illuminates his face in the purest way possible.

“Yes, let’s come again together.”

 

 

*

 

 

Yuta does look kind of good sitting around looking like he’s daydreaming, as proven by the picture Sicheng took on the day they went to the shrine.

As for Sicheng, Yuta thinks that he has never taken a picture of him more beautiful than the one of him clasping his hands together in prayer as the snowy grounds in the background accentuates the almost celestial quality of his beauty.

 

**(viii)**

 

Two weeks before his scheduled flight, Yuta comes home to an odd but regulated sound of running water in the bathroom. It’s doubly odd because the lights aren’t switched on and if it isn’t for Sicheng’s trench coat lying on the couch and the wallet on the kitchen table, he might have reached out to the security. Perhaps Sicheng has been tired and needed the shower badly, he thinks. Or perhaps he ran into some mud, either way Yuta supposes he should calm down.

Now he understands the exact precarious situation Sicheng was in a few weeks ago when he came back to dark living room with an opened door and Yuta was sitting outside in the balcony.

He knocks on the bathroom. “I got you some melon buns,” he says, even though Sicheng didn’t respond to his text earlier when he asked if he had wanted Yuta to get something for him from the konbini. “And don’t take too long.”

Sicheng doesn’t answer him.

He flops to the couch and checks his phone for news and social media updates while the water in the bathroom stays running. It’s making him very uneasy that he has not heard Sicheng at all despite knowing that he’s definitely in the house, but he tries to set it aside. It’s not the first time he’s overthinking things because Sicheng does have the habit of taking some extended shower when he’s in some need for a quiet downtime. Like during that time when he was going to perform the most challenging surgery or like that time when he read a journal and didn’t agree with the findings, and maybe it was like that time when he accidentally committed a surgical error—

“Shit.”

He rushes to the bathroom to find that it’s actually not locked, so he knocks and opens the door right away to find his suspicions validated, because Sicheng has been sitting against the wall on the opposite side of the shower, fully clothed and fully drenched from head to toe with cold water.

 

 

*

 

 

Yuta hands him a cup of hot tea and gestures for him to drink while he reaches for the hair dryer. Sicheng seems to be in a contemplative trance and hasn’t spoken a word to him since he pulled him up from the bathroom floor, took his clothes off and dried his body. He also stares at him blankly when he touches his forehead to check for potential fever before turning on the hair dryer.

As he slowly runs his fingers through Sicheng’s hair, his chest feels like it’s being weighed down by a stone—not because he has never seen him this emotionally fragile, but because it stings that he won’t be around for him any more further whenever he’s upset and needing some support. It also stings because because he’s now being served with the grave reminder that in his struggle to cope with his imminent departure, he has forgotten that Sicheng has also been coping with the eventual separation and he’s starting to remember things in a new, painful light.

Sicheng asking if they could stay together for the remainder of his time in Japan; Sicheng suggesting that they take pictures of each other to share as weekly milestones; Sicheng trying his best to steal time away from work to be with him; Sicheng making it up to him and expecting no apologies; Sicheng’s recently erratic dietary habits; Sicheng’s insistence that he’s no longer afraid of heights; Sicheng’s proposal-sounding confessions—Yuta wants to hit himself now that he understands just how much he has been understating Sicheng’s pains because he has been too blinded by his own and just when he thinks he has overcome the separation anxiety, it kills him that he has missed out so many signs that Sicheng has been needing help just as much as he did.

It frightens him that if Sicheng ever ends up in this situation again, whatever it may be, he might not ever reach out to anyone for help.

When he finishes drying Sicheng’s hair, he places a heat pack gently on his tummy and slowly lays him down to the bed.

“Stay here for a bit, ok? I’ll get a quick shower,” he tells him softly.

Sicheng lifts his head up reluctantly, and Yuta caresses his cheek.

“I’ll get back soon, and you decide if you want to tell me anything, ok?”

 

 

*

 

 

Yuta hears Sicheng entering the bathroom as he scrubs his body, and he turns the shower low so that it’s just enough for the water to flow. It’s a pattern familiar to him, because Sicheng always avoids direct confrontation when he’s emotionally vulnerable.

“You can talk.”

There’s almost a minute of pregnant silence before Sicheng begins.

“I killed someone today.”

Yuta stables himself against the wall; he’s certain that Sicheng hasn’t meant it literally but it doesn’t mean that it’s less impactful, no matter how many times he hears stuff like this from him.

“I’m sorry, I mean—I couldn’t save him.”

Yuta takes a deep breath. “You’re only a doctor, you’re not a god.”

“You’d think that I’m used to it now, having been a doctor for quite some time. Remember how it was one of the first thing that we talked about?”

“Yes,” he answers, because it’s one of those conversations that he’ll always remember vividly, despite having taken place around two years ago. “I was still calling you _Don-sensei_ at that time, and it was such a coincidence too.”

It might have taken some work to start gathering up courage to tell Sicheng what he actually felt, but Yuta would never forget the meeting in the playground that started it. He was heading back home after eating champon ramen at his usual ramen place and spotted Sicheng sitting alone in the swing playing with a stray dog. He had yelled out to him and they both spent some time playing with the dog until Yuta put down his backpack and played catch with the dog and Sicheng suddenly told him that one of his patients had passed away from the complications from the surgery. He poured about even though it wasn’t the first time he had to deal with deaths, it still hurt him every single time he has to experience it.

“Do you remember what you said to me?”

“Yeah, I told you that it would be abnormal for you to be numbed to it, because a doctor who’s not affected by death probably shouldn’t be trusted with life. You remember that it was my dad who said it, right?”

“I wonder what he thinks about me now?”

“Who? My dad?”

Yuta takes a deep breath as he recalls all the subtle conversations he had had with his parents, trying to tell them about Sicheng without outright telling them that he was in love with a man.

“Yeah.”

“He still likes you a lot. He thinks you’re admirable and thinks I should learn from you.”

“Does he really?”

“Yeah, I think he wants someone like you as a son.”

“I see.”

“I think you’re really admirable too, you know?”

“Yes, I know.”

Yuta couldn’t suppress a grin. “So you need to tell me whenever you feel like this again and I’ll listen to you no matter where will I be and what will I be doing. Even if all you do is to sit and sigh quietly, I’ll listen to you, ok?”

When it had happened in the playground that day, Yuta didn’t know what should be the proper response to a sudden emotional outpour as heart-wrenching as that, and from a person he hardly knew too. When it had happened, Yuta had only thought of Sicheng as a captivating-looking doctor from the hospital who seemed to love ramen and was in need of some adventure around Osaka and Kyoto. When it had happened, Yuta didn’t know that he would later end up being so attached to this highly successful doctor slightly younger than him.

When it had happened, Yuta didn’t realise that it would be the start of a mutual co-dependence that he wouldn’t fully understand until now—now that they are both naked in some forms, one in flesh and one in mind; now that he’s feeling more exposed than ever because he’s afraid that he might be making the single biggest mistake of his life; now that his chest is hurting like the world just dropped its weight on him; now that he’s potentially leaving Sicheng to be broken on his own.

“I didn’t mean to worry you, I honestly didn’t. I thought I was going to be alright, it’s just that I didn’t know I wasn’t. I didn’t even know how I got home, and then I just turned on the shower and then I just—”

Yuta yanks open the shower curtain and seizes Sicheng.

“Tell me you want me to stay.”

Sicheng freezes up.

“Say it,” Yuta insists. “Say it and I’ll stay with you. Say it and I won’t leave you.”

Sicheng wraps himself around Yuta with such an unsettling calmness that freaks Yuta out so much that tears starts pouring out uncontrollably.

“I’m not going to say it.”

His voice is hollow, his heart beats slow, and Yuta feels very cold from the inside—and it isn’t because of the weather or the fact that he isn’t wearing anything.

 

 

*

 

 

“I’ll be ok,” writes Sicheng on the selfie he has posted on the board.

 

 

*

 

 

“Wait for me,” Yuta scribbles on the picture of himself that Sicheng took.

 

 

**(ix)**

 

 

Sicheng will keep them to himself for now, but behind every picture he has pinned on the board is a description of a lie that he has told Yuta.

First, at the back of the picture of Yuta standing at the balcony is a little note stating the fact that they didn’t meet at the playground by mistake. Sicheng had carefully pieced together clues from the routes he usually took to his home and picked the playground that Yuta would most likely pass by. While he initially did hang out at the playground in hopes that he would eventually bump into Yuta, him befriending a stray dog was the added bonus. He named the dog Cinderella (only for Yuta to later tell him that the dog he has been calling Cinderella has a dick) and played with him after work everyday to release his stress until the fated day of his patient’s tragedy in which he had bumped into Yuta.

He hadn’t been able to tell Yuta that meeting him there had been his goal—because Yuta was set on seeing their encounter as a by-product of fate. Cinderella later found an owner, because a week after, Sicheng found him with a leash and he knew it was time to say goodbye.

Secondly, behind the picture of him sleeping after their hot pot is the confession that he knew who Yuta was even before they had met, because Renjun once hosted his friend from Germany and together they spent some few hours watching the clips of this famous dance instructor whose classes in Urban Dance Camp Yangyang had attended the year prior. Sicheng made it a principle of his to never watch any dance clips ever since becoming a doctor to not remind himself of the dream he had let go but he made an exception that day (mostly because Renjun thought this person was the coolest person ever) and saw the most bewitchingly seductive man he has ever seen in his life.

Whenever Yuta recounted their first meeting in the hospital, it was always about how Yuta thought he had seen the most beautiful person he had seen in his life wearing the most stoic expression ever—and Sicheng had never told him about the way he was so starstruck that he could barely look at Yuta.

Thirdly, written at the back of the picture of Yuta napping on the couch is the fact that he had indeed thought of asking Yuta to share the rental for this apartment, despite the fact that Sicheng was the one who insisted on this, despite the fact that Sicheng was telling the truth when he said he didn’t mind paying for it, despite the fact that Yuta would really have not minded on paying. There’s something really intimate about sharing an apartment together and Sicheng didn’t think he was ready for this level of commitment and his doubts were vindicated when he accidentally left the ring in his home—

—then the notes behind the fourth picture, the one with Yuta underneath a cherry tree, is about the fact that he had thought of something more permanent long before Yuta told him that he had wanted for them to grow old together. Yuta would have called him out on the mess that he is, because he has wanted some sort of exclusivity yet rejects the very definition of a vow.

Yuta would have teased him about the paradox that he is and he would be in no place to refute him.

The fifth one with Yuta sitting in the train has the notes about him never going around to tell Yuta that he didn’t come up with the egg sandwich recipe by himself because he had texted Momoka for her help, and she was the one who reminded Sicheng to replace the mayonnaise with Greek yoghurt. He had thought that Yuta would be able to tell how impossible for him to be able to make a bento without outside help but he had been too flattered by the glow in his smile to feel like telling him of Momoka’s intervention.

Behind the picture of his grandfather’s mansion, the one he was using as the base for his sixth picture, contained the scribblings of Sicheng writing down the fact that he had never recovered from homesickness—nobody ever does, not really—and he missed his home terribly even though he had lived in Japan for the last ten years. He had missed the bits of his home that get lost with every development project, he had missed the years he had distanced himself from his sister, he had missed the gradual aging of his parents, he had missed the connections with his childhood friends and schooltime gangs.

At the back of the seventh picture, the one with Yuta sitting on the steps to the shrine, it had Sicheng writing down that he wished he had the courage to ask for more than just living together before he eventually sent Yuta off to Los Angeles. He could have asked so much more, but he asked for so little, and he had gone to sleep thinking that he had held back because he didn’t love Yuta enough.

Finally, behind the last picture he had pinned on the board, the one with his selfie and his writing “I’ll be ok”, there’s a simple sentence in jittery handwriting:

_I wish you didn’t have to go._

 

 

*

**Author's Note:**

> \- thank you for reading and come talk to me at twitter @ [youkainingenjoo](https://twitter.com/youkainingenjoo) if you're interested in talking


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